__Wiesenthal Center

_Wiesenthal Center Denounces German Prize for Pastor Who Denies
Legitimacy of the Jewish People; Urges Former German President to Cancel
His Keynote Address
February 5, 2012

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is urging Roman Herzog, the President of
Germany from 1994 to 1999, to withdraw his participation in awarding the
Deutscher Mediapreis (German Media Prize) to Mitri Raheb, a
controversial Palestinian Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem. In a letter to
Dr. Herzog, Center Associate Dean, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, said that
Pastor Raheb, “consistently has used theological garb to cover an extremist political agenda to demonize the Jewish people.”
In speeches given to various religious symposia and church summits
(including the infamous 2004 US Presbyterian assembly that approved a
boycott and divestment campaign against Israel), Raheb promoted a
“Palestinian Theology” that purports that Jews are not the Chosen People
and therefore have no right to the Holy Land. In a March 2010 address,
he said: "Actually, the Palestinian Christians are the only ones in the
world that, when they speak about their forefathers, they mean their
actual forefathers, and also the forefathers in the faith…So, that is
the reality of the peoples of the land. Again, they aren't Israel. This
experience I'm talking about, it's only the Palestinians who understand
this, because Israel represents Rome….It was our forefathers to whom the
revelation was given..."
In the letter to Dr. Herzog, Rabbi Cooper also wrote, “It is an outrage that the organizers
of the German Media Prize would bestow their highest honor on a
religious bigot who is re-introducing Replacement Theology to
de-legitimize the Jewish people and its right to pursue its spiritual
and national destiny.” Cooper reminded Herzog that he knew the late Simon Wiesenthal and that he knew, “everything
he stood for — for the victims of the Nazi Holocaust and for the
younger generations in Germany. If he were alive today, what do you
think he would say to you?”

Rabbi Cooper added, “In 2012, a study reveals 20% of young
Germans never heard of Auschwitz and that anti-Semitic attitudes have
run rampant in the mainstream of German society. We urge you not to
contribute to further legitimize the campaign to demonize and
de-legitimize the Jewish people and the Jewish state and urge you to
cancel your speech at this event, unless the organizers withdraw their
prize to this religious bigot.”

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish
human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the
United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the
United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe, and
the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).